1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control apparatus, a print control method and a memory medium therefor, and more particularly to a print control apparatus, a print control method and a memory medium therefor adapted, in the printing in a system provided with an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer and a printer, in case where the printing sheets are mixed in direction or in size within a same document, or in case of enlarged or reduced printing in the above-mentioned system.
2. Related Background Art
In the printing operation with a printer, there is conventionally known a technology, instead of printing the print data of a page on a sheet, of printing the print data of plural pages on a sheet in a reduced manner. Such printing, called N-page printing or N-up printing, is used in various applications such as test printing of a document for editing or layout confirmation, a case of reducing the number of output sheets, or a case of varying the print format such as the font size or layout.
Also in case of enlarged or reduced printing with such conventional system, it has been customary to enlarge or reduce the print data by operating the resolution on a host computer or in the printing device itself if it has such function.
However the conventional technology mentioned above has been associated with the following drawbacks. The conventional N-page printing assumes printing of a document in which all the pages have a same size and a same direction. For this reason, in printing a document of N pages including plural page sizes or plural directions, the sheet is discharged, without printing of N pages, at a point of the change in the page size.
The N-page printing may also be realized without such interim sheet discharge, but, in such case, the print data may overflow from the print area by the change in the page size.
Also in the enlarged or reduced printing in such conventional system, as it has been customary to enlarge or reduce the print data by operating the resolution on a host computer or in the printing device itself if it has such function, the output format of the document may vary in the former case as the print data are reconstructed by the application with the resolution thereof.
Also in the latter case, the enlarged or reduced printing is not possible unless the printing device itself has the above-mentioned function.
Furthermore, the conventional system is not designed to print in a proper position of the sheet in the enlarged or reduced printing. Furthermore, in case the conventional system has a function of printing plural logic pages (pages processed in the application) on a single physical page (actually outputted page), such function is not so designed as to print the print data in an exactly symmetrical position in the horizontal and vertical directions of the sheet.
In consideration of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide a print control apparatus, a print control method and a memory medium therefor enabling, even in case plural sizes or directions of the sheets are mixed within a same document, to prevent an interim sheet discharge or an overflow of the print data from the print area and to obtain an output result similar to that of a document not containing such mixed sizes or directions of the sheets.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a print control apparatus, print control method and a memory medium therefor capable of providing a device lacking the enlarging/reducing function with such enlarging/reducing function, also enabling the enlarged or reduced printing without changing the content of the original print data, further enabling, in two-side printing, the printing in a same position on both sides of the sheet, and enabling to print the print data in an exactly symmetrical position in the horizontal and vertical directions.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a print control apparatus, a print control method and a memory medium therefor enabling control to effect the N-up printing with the print data including pages of plural kinds (different for example in the size and direction) with a printer driver corresponding to a printer lacking the conventional N-up printing function or automatic layout function, without newly preparing a portion for generating the PDL (page description language) from the DDI (device driver interface) function outputted from a graphic engine (for example GDI (graphical device interface)).
The above-mentioned objects can be attained, according to the present invention, by a print control apparatus capable of determining the layout on a print sheet, comprising area determination means for determining a print area corresponding to a logic page by dividing a physical page into N (a natural number); enlargement/reduction means for determining the enlargement/reduction rate for each logic page based on the size of each print area and the page information of each logic page and effecting enlargement/reduction with the enlargement/reduction rate corresponding to each logic page; and arrangement means for arranging each logic page thus enlarged or reduced in each print area.
The present invention is featured by further comprising storage means for storing the page information of the logic page, and sheet determination means for determining the sheet size and the sheet direction of the physical page, based on the page size information contained in the page information of the logic page, wherein the enlargement/reduction means is adapted to calculate the enlargement/reduction rate based on the stored page information and the determined sheet size.
The present invention is further featured in that the sheet determination means is adapted to determine an optimum sheet size based on the page information of N pages to be printed on a same sheet.
The present invention is further featured in that the sheet determination means is adapted to determine the sheet size based on an externally entered instruction.
The present invention is further featured in that the sheet determination means is adapted to determine an optimum sheet size, in case of two-side printing, based on the page information of 2N pages to be printed on a same sheet.
The present invention is further featured in that the enlargement/reduction means adopts such an enlargement/reduction rate as to provide a largest image that can be accommodated in each print area without changing the page size and the vertical-horizontal ratio of the original logic data.
The present invention is further featured in that the area determination means is adapted, in case the number N of sheet division is a multiple of 2 but is not a square of a natural number, not to change the direction of the sheet at the area division thereof for a sheet of which the length of the longer side exceeds twice of the length of the shorter side, but to change the sheet direction for a sheet of which the length of the longer side is less that twice of the length of the shorter side.
The present invention is further featured in that it is applicable to a system for effecting the printing operation by transmitting print data from an upper device such as a computer to a printing device such as a printer.
The present invention further comprises storage means for temporarily storing the data in an intermediate code format different from the print data, and preparation for preparing the print data based on thus temporarily stored data.
The above-mentioned objects can also be attained, according to the present invention, by a print control apparatus, comprising dispatcher means for receiving common print information, generated from drawing data generated by an arbitrary application, from drawing means dependent on the operating system; intermediate data conversion means for converting the print information, received by the dispatcher means, into intermediate data and storing such intermediate data in spool means; setting means for effecting designation for assigning N logic pages (N being a natural number) in a physical page; area determination means for determining a print area corresponding to a logic page by dividing the physical page into N and determining the enlargement/reduction rate for each logic page; process means for processing the intermediate data stored in the spool means in such a manner that the logic page is arranged with enlargement or reduction in thus determined print area and outputting the processed data in the drawing data format to the drawing means; and print data generation means for converting the print information, received by the dispatcher means, into print data consisting of control commands and outputting such print data to an external device, and a print control method and a memory medium therefor.
The present invention is also featured in that the drawing data are GDI (graphical device interface).
The present invention is further featured in that print information is DDI (device driver interface).
The present invention is further featured in that he print data is a page description language.
The above-mentioned objects can be further attained, according to the present invention, by a print control apparatus for controlling the printing operation, comprising memory means for storing an effective print area of an input sheet, a size and an effective print area of an output sheet, an offset value and a set enlargement/reduction mode; discrimination means for discriminating the set enlargement/reduction mode; setting means for setting the coordinate of an output device based on the result of discrimination; and print control means for controlling the printing of the stored print data based on such setting, and a print control method and a memory medium therefor.
The present invention is also featured in that it is applicable to a system capable of temporarily storing, in an upper device such as a computer, data of an intermediate code format different from the print data, and effecting the printing by providing a printing device such as printer with print data prepared according to the temporarily stored data.
The present invention is further featured in that the memory means is adapted to temporarily store an effective print area of the input sheet, a size and an effective print area of the output sheet, an offset value and set enlargement/reduction mode as intermediate codes.
The present invention is further featured in that the enlargement/reduction mode includes an enlargement/reduction mode to be designated by the output sheet, an enlargement/reduction mode to be designated by the enlargement/reduction rate, and an enlargement/reduction mode to be designated by the output sheet and the enlargement/reduction rate.
The present invention is further featured in comprising arrangement means for effecting a centering operation to an appropriate print position, based on the effective print area of the input sheet, the size and the effective print area of the output sheet, the offset value and the set enlargement/reduction mode.
The present invention is further featured in that the print control means has a control function of printing plural logic pages on a physical page, the arrangement means is adapted, in such printing, to arrange the plural logic pages in a symmetrical print position in the horizontal and vertical directions.
The present invention is further featured in that the logic page is a page processed in the application and the physical page is an actually printed page.
The above-mentioned objects can be further attained, according to the present invention, by a print control apparatus for determining the layout on a sheet to be printed, comprising dispatcher means for receiving common print information, generated from drawing data generated by an arbitrary application, from drawing means dependent on the operating system; intermediate data conversion means for converting the print information, received by the dispatcher means, into intermediate data and storing such intermediate data in spool means; setting means for setting an enlargement/reduction rate; process means for processing the intermediate data stored in the spool means in such a manner that the logic page is arranged with enlargement or reduction in thus determined print area and outputting the processed data in the drawing data format to the drawing means; and print data generation means for converting the print information, received by the dispatcher means, into print data consisting of control commands and outputting such print data to an external device, and a print control method and a memory medium therefor.